Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to: an image processing apparatus such as a multifunctional digital image forming apparatus (i.e., a multi-function peripheral abbreviated as MFP) having multiple functions, e.g., copier function, printer function, facsimile function, and scanner function; an image processing system provided with this image processing apparatus and a portable terminal apparatus; and a recording medium.
Description of the Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
At offices or other work locations, users can use functions of such an image processing apparatus as described above from their portable terminal apparatuses, e.g., smartphones and tablet computers. In the circumstances, their portable terminal apparatuses are normally registered for security purposes. So, nobody can use functions of this image processing apparatus from an unregistered portable terminal apparatus.
However, it often happens that they accidentally have a trouble on their registered portable terminal apparatuses or find themselves without their registered portable terminal apparatuses. When it happens at offices, they will be unable to use functions of the image processing apparatus from their portable terminal apparatuses and thus suffer from slow down at work. In other cases users sometimes need to work with a portable terminal apparatus having a larger display than those of their registered portable terminal apparatuses.
To meet this need, suggested is an image processing apparatus that gives a temporary permission to use functions of the image processing apparatus from an unregistered portable terminal apparatus (also to be referred to as “temporary terminal”) in place of a registered portable terminal apparatus (also to be referred to as “proper terminal”) having a proper permission to use them.
Furthermore, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2011-071588 suggests a technique that gives a temporary permission to use an image forming apparatus having a user authentication function. More specifically, a regular authentication database stores regular authentication data that is identifiers registered by an administrator, and a temporary authentication database stores temporary authentication data that is user identifiers registered by users who will possibly need to use the image processing apparatus temporarily. If an authentication data registration judgment portion judges that both of the regular authentication database and the temporary authentication database store no identifier that is identical to a user identifier entered and received from a terminal apparatus, an identifier that is identical to the user identifier is stored on the temporary authentication database as temporary authentication data. If either of the databases stores such an identifier, the user who entered this user identifier is successfully authorized.
However, there is an unsolved problem with the image processing apparatus that gives a temporary permission to use functions of the image processing apparatus from the temporary terminal in place of the proper terminal, as described below.
When the user accidentally finds himself/herself without the proper terminal, for example, he/she has to take an immediate step by transferring scan data from the image processing apparatus to the temporary terminal, not to the the proper terminal. Then he/she further has to be bothered by transferring the scan data to the proper terminal from the temporary terminal in order to have it in the proper terminal as originally intended.
Meanwhile, for purposes of consolidation of information, the user may need to keep in the proper terminal a complete log record about a process whichever between the image processing apparatus and the proper terminal or between the image processing apparatus and the temporary terminal. Even if that is the case, it is not possible actually because, when the user uses functions of the image processing apparatus from the temporary terminal temporarily, the temporary terminal creates a log record to keep it in the temporary terminal itself, and the proper terminal does not take it therefrom. Thus log information is dispersed, making log information management complicated.
Briefly, the unsolved problem is that the proper terminal is not allowed to keep in itself the data that the proper terminal should have normally kept in itself if the proper terminal were used, also after the temporary terminal is used temporarily in place of the proper terminal.
Since it is not a technique for giving a temporary permission to use functions of the image processing apparatus from the temporary terminal in place of the proper terminal, the technique described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2011-071588 does not bring a solution to the above-described problem.